On Jan. 1, 2025, new process serving rules for Cook County formally went into effect, allowing law firms to use private process servers for original service in Cook County.
The new rule requires that a $5 fee must be paid to the Cook County Sheriff for each summons during the eFiling process. (This fee is refunded by the sheriff if the filer later chooses to serve by sheriff.)
Read below to learn how to pay the required fee.
Paying the sheriff’s fee in InfoTrack
Select Illinois from the state toggle and click the Start new case action button to start eFiling a case initiation in Cook County as you normally would.
When you reach the Filing section, add your document(s) for service.
Then, under Court Fees and Optional Services, scroll all the way down to the bottom and select Summons Service Fee.
In the Quantity column, choose the number of summonses you will need to issue with this filing. The sheriff’s $5 fee will apply for each summons issued.
More about Cook County process serving
For more details on on how to serve case initiating documents in Cook County, Illinois, check out our InfoTrack blog post, "12 questions (and answers) about the 2025 Cook County process serving rule change."